The Right Prescription

Collins, Kavanaugh, and the Rewards of ‘Moderation’

The left turns on Susan Collins despite her years of cosseting them.

We have all seen those grisly stories in the news about people who adopt dangerous predators as pets only to be torn limb from limb by the very creatures they have cosseted for years. This is analogous to what is now happening to Susan Collins. The Maine Senator has frequently curried favor with the left by taking “principled stands” against her fellow Republicans on issues like Obamacare, and basked in the praise of progressives. Collins presumably thought this meant she was safe from the left’s innate brutishness when she took a perfectly reasonable position regarding SCOTUS nominee Brett Kavanaugh.

Inevitably, like anyone who naïvely believes that vicious animals can be civilized by simple kindness, Senator Collins is now being mauled by the left and its mouthpieces in the media. In what should be an eye-opening lesson, one of the organizations she has bucked her own party to defend has launched an expensive ad campaign whose purpose is to bully her into voting against Judge Kavanaugh’s confirmation. The Hill reports that Planned Parenthood, a direct beneficiary of Senator Collins’ steadfast refusal to support last year’s Obamacare repeal legislation, began running these ads against her on Wednesday:

Planned Parenthood Action Fund is going up with a six-figure ad buy targeting GOP Sen. Susan Collins (Maine) as the fight over Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh enters a crucial stretch.… Collins is facing an onslaught of pressure to oppose the nomination.

Included in the “onslaught of pressure” has been a standard tactic employed when the Democrats loose the dogs of disinformation — harassment of her family and staff. There have been profane out-of-state voicemails left on their answering machines, thousands of coat hangers sent in the mail (presumably suggesting that Judge Kavanaugh would somehow return us to that mythical age when countless women received abortions in back alleys), protesters yelling obscenities in her front yard, and of course that old lefty standby — overt threats of violence. Senator Collins told the Wall Street Journal:

In one case — and we are going to turn this over to the police, but unfortunately, of course, the person didn’t leave a name or number — but they actually threatened to rape one of my young female staffers.

In addition to verbal abuse and threats of violence, Senator Collins has been the target of a crowd funding campaign of questionable legality. As the WSJ points out, it’s illegal to offer anything of value to a member of Congress with the intent of influencing an official act. The crowd funding initiative does precisely that by raising money for a hypothetical 2020 opponent but offering to withhold that campaign contribution if she votes against Judge Kavanaugh’s confirmation. The offer to withhold the money from this chimerical politician in exchange for a vote is illegal according to attorneys consulted by Collins.

I have had three attorneys tell me that they think it is a clear violation of the federal law on bribery.… Actually, two told me that; one told me it’s extortion.… And it is extraordinary to me that people would want to participate in trying to essentially buy a Senator’s vote.

The irony here is that Senator Collins hasn’t yet revealed whether she will vote to confirm Judge Kavanaugh. But the Democrats are panicking. In order to kill the Kavanaugh nomination, they need to win over two Republicans and assure that no member of their own caucus goes off the reservation. The latter may well be more difficult than the former. A number of Democratic Senators face strong challenges in November, including Indiana’s Joe Donnelly, North Dakota’s Heidi Heitkamp, and West Virginia’s Joe Manchin. All three voted to confirm President Trump’s last SCOTUS nominee, Neil Gorsuch, in April.

Kavanaugh’s confirmation vote was set yesterday afternoon for September 20, after the Democrats attempted a variety of ridiculous maneuvers to bottle the nomination up in the Senate Judiciary Committee. In the end, Senator Dianne Feinstein was reduced to making a claim about some unnamed misdeed committed by Judge Kavanaugh when he was in high school, of which she ostensibly learned from an anonymous source. Feinstein allegedly has a letter, but has refused to let anyone see it — not even the Democrats on the Judiciary Committee. Yesterday afternoon she released the following statement:

I have received information from an individual concerning the nomination of Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court. That individual strongly requested confidentiality, declined to come forward or press the matter further, and I have honored that decision. I have, however, referred the matter to federal investigative authorities.

The Democrats continue to behave in an utterly irresponsible manner in the Kavanaugh confirmation process. They made jackasses of themselves during the judge’s hearings, resorted to an anonymous source to defame him, and sit by as their special interest accomplices engage in a campaign of intimidation against a Republican Senator they heretofore claimed to admire. There’s a lesson in all this for “moderate” GOP politicians and the electorate. The Democrats can’t be trusted — ever. They, and the people who finance them, are dangerous political predators who will always turn on you, sooner or later.